Talisman
by Robin Sparrow
Summary: "I know you can do this, Rumple, and I know you can do it right. I just didn't want you to have to do it alone." An AU Rumbelle one-shot, taking place during S2E13, Tiny.


Well, now. This was actually written a few months ago or so, but I stumbled across it while hunting for something worth posting and didn't hate it, so here you go. A spoonful of Rumbelle fluff for your delight.

This bit takes place during the S2E13 episode of Once Upon a Time, "Tiny." It's what I call a wishing well moment. Does it fit into the canon? Not really, no. It doesn't really make much sense at all that this would happen, considering at this point in the show Belle had lost her memory and whatnot. But it was a scene I couldn't shake from my head, so I wrote it down, and this is how it came out.

Feedback, constructive criticism, etc. is all MORE than welcome!

**Disclaimer**: Nope, don't own OUaT or Rumplestiltskin. Sadly.

* * *

Trembling. The Dark One, the Crocodile, the Monster, the Beast – Rumplestiltskin was trembling. _The village coward, _he thought, fingers tightening around the golden head of his cane. _No matter how thick you make your skin, that will never change. You didn't fight. You are a coward._

He couldn't look back. He couldn't surrender to the fear, though the loss of his magic shook him to his rotten core. He couldn't give up, not when the odds were so close. This time, he would fight. He would win, or die trying. But his hands. His damned hands refused to cooperate, to accept his resolve. He_ would_ do this. But his palms remained cold and clammy, his fingers dancing like nervous horses before a storm, inconsolable.

Until—a small, delicate hand slipped into his, warm and dry as a soft blanket. The fingers, so small yet so strong. Healing hands; a hero's hands.

"Rumple." Belle smiled up at him, her eyes a clearer, deeper blue than even the skies outside the window behind her. "It's going to be okay."

He stared down at her with an expression akin to the one he'd worn often during her first days in his castle, once upon a long time ago. A mixture of intrigue and bafflement, and most of all enchantment – as though he were an ordinary man regarding a strange, otherworldly being he could hardly believe was real. Indeed, that she sat beside him now, on a plane, on a quest to find his long-lost son, seemed far too lovely a dream to be true. And yet – and yet – "You shouldn't have come," he said, for the thousandth time that day.

She raised her eyebrows, but kept her hand wrapped around his. "That may be, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm here now. So I suppose you'll have to live with it."

He squeezed her fingers, almost too gently to feel. "Why did you come? Why couldn't you just stay in Storybrooke as I asked?" A thousand million things could go wrong. The plane could crash. They could be mugged. He could lose her in a crowd. They could be struck by lightning. His imagination roved the range of possibilities, all the way from the obvious to the obscenely improbable. Each what if was worse than the last. Worst by far was the fact of his impotence – without his magic, he would be powerless to protect her, let alone himself.

"I never could say no to an adventure," she quipped. When he did not smile, she sighed and continued in sobered tones. "I wanted to help you. To support you, and I can't do that if I'm stuck in Storybrooke."

"You didn't have to play the hero, Belle. I'm a grown man; I can take care of myself."

"Really? What's this?" She brushed her fingertips across the bandages on his knuckles. "We're not even in the air yet, and you're already hurt. You've been protecting me as much as you could – now, I'm going to protect you."

"Oh, really? And how exactly do you propose to do that? You don't have any weapons, you're not a warrior or a magician, and—"

"And none of that matters. Whatever dangers are out there, we can face together. It's not the outside world that worried me." She bit her lip. "I'm here to protect you from yourself."

He drew his hand away sharply. "What does that mean?"

"Don't misunderstand me. I believe in you. I always have. But no man is an island. I want to help you stay strong."

"You mean, stay good."

"Yes." Her eyes pleaded with him for understanding, but her lips bowed into an expression of resolve. She'd made up her mind on this point, and there would be no changing it. "It's a hard thing. For everyone. Especially when you've been through so much. I _know_ you can do this, Rumple, and I know you can do it right. I just didn't want you to have to do it alone."

He hesitated. Part of him wanted to rage, to call her out on her hypocrisy and show her his ugly side. She believed in him, but not enough to trust him on his own. She defended him, but would not let him defend himself. Still playing the hero, after all this time, and she didn't even seem to realize it.

But he was not so simple as to mistake the root of her motives for pity. Difficult though it still was to believe, she loved him, and he could see it in her eyes how very desperately she needed him to prove it wasn't a waste. It terrified him at times, this dependence – no one had needed him this way in a very, very long time – but now it served to still his hands and quell his tremors, at least for the moment.

He laced his fingers in hers, suppressing a wince for his bruised knuckles, and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. He held onto her, as though she were the talisman his life depended on, for the duration of the flight, though not another word passed between them.


End file.
